Germans arrested for Louvre stunt in Mona Lisa hall

PARIS - Two Germans were arrested on Sept 19 after they stuck two paintings on a wall of the hall that hosts the Mona Lisa in Paris’s Louvre museum, police sources said.

The two men used sticky tape to stick the two paintings – measuring 30cm by 40cm – in the hall where visitors flock to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece.

One showed one of the two men wearing armour, while the other was a portrait of the two men accompanied by a woman.

Security officers at the museum detained the two men and called the police, who arrested them for minor damage to the wall. Interviewed by police, they said they had done it for fun.

The two men will be summoned to appear in court once the museum files a formal complaint for the damage, said the police sources.

The Mona Lisa itself, now behind a thick layer of protective glass, suffered no damage in the incident.

Museum officials are more than usually alert these days after a spate of heists at French museums and galleries, which have highlighted inadequate security in some cases and led to questions about whether criminal gangs see them as soft targets.

The Louvre itself was targeted last October when eight items of jewellery worth millions of dollars were stolen during a daylight heist.

Even though four suspects have been arrested, the stolen items have still not been found despite extensive searches by French investigators.

The burglary stunned the world, embarrassed France and revealed a series of security lapses, including the museum’s old-fashioned CCTV system.

Many of the museum’s security flaws had already been highlighted in a 2019 audit ordered by the museum, the findings of which were never acted on.

The Louvre welcomed around nine million visitors last year, far above its intended capacity, which has led to overcrowding problems.

In May, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major overhaul of the museum, which will include a new space for the Mona Lisa and a new museum entrance. AFP